“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:5-6).

Since 1997 about ninety children have passed through our orphanage, Casa Emanuel, in Iaşi. A number of them have since been adopted or taken into foster care and we have supported the families financially. Since the year 2000 we have been supporting three children in families, two in foster care and one adopted.

Lucian and Mihaela Ţiplic, who work as cooks at Cantina Adonai in Târgu Frumos, take care of two boys, Gabi, ten and Ionuţ, fifteen. They also have two natural children, Lucian, seventeen and Anca, fifteen.

Gabi was at our orphanage until May 2000 when he was put in the care of the Ţiplic family. In June of that year it was discovered that he had a half-brother, Ionuţ, who lived in Răducăneni, a village near Iaşi. In August 2000 this brother was also taken in by the Ţiplic family so that both boys could be together. They have been supported by your gifts since that time. Their mother is in prison for prostitution. Recently Lucian and Mihaela, the foster parents, were baptized.

Gabi and Ionuţ participate in the weekend activities of Cantina Adonai and are learning to play the piano. They are doing well at school in the village of Mădărjeşti, near Târgu Frumos, where they live. They feel very much a part of the Ţiplic family and get on well with the other children.

Constantin and Silvia Pintilie from Iaşi adopted Bianca Torodoc, eleven, who was at our orphanage until June 2000. They also have three natural children, Sergiu and Monica, who are grown up and live in Spain, and a daughter Ema, who is thirteen. Silvia has worked as a volunteer at Cantina Betleem since December 1999.

Bianca has learned to play the violin at Cantina Betleem, and her adoptive parents say she is making good progress at school.

Over the years other orphanage children have been adopted or put into foster care. Our main concern for children who leave the orphanage is that they be raised in Christian homes and have a stable family background, while remaining in their native culture. We have never been involved in international adoptions because we were never free to choose the adoptive family. A committee in Bucharest was responsible for the placement of children in families.

However, at the beginning of 2003 the Romanian government put a stop to international adoptions because of massive and widespread corruption. There was a major scandal in the newspapers that year involving 200 children supposedly adopted from the county of Iaşi who disappeared without trace.

Over the years there have been many attempts by the local authorities to control how we raise the children at the orphanage. These controls have increased as the children have grown up and started to attend the local state schools.

The most serious was in the spring of 2003. We went to visit the orphanage in April that year and together with the children had a messianic Jewish worship celebration in a theater in Iaşi. After we left Romania there were anti-Semitic attacks on our properties, swastikas painted on our vehicles, and vicious newspaper articles in Iaşi against us and our work. These attacks, which were well coordinated, lasted for about two months and culminated in a letter from Pintilie Penciuc, the director of the Child Protection Agency, who wrote to us making specific demands relating to the religious education
of the orphanage children. He threatened not to renew our operating license if we failed to comply.

• Religious quotations (Scripture verses) and the Hebrew alphabet should no longer be displayed on the walls of the orphanage
• The chapel should be transformed into a games hall and used only for that purpose.
• The children’s everyday activities should no longer include compulsory religious education.
• The children’s religion should be respected (they should be taken to the Orthodox Church if they wish).
• The children should no longer be made to memorize prayers, Scripture verses or to learn the Hebrew alphabet.
• Competitions of a religious nature should no longer be organized (such as “Who knows the most Scripture verses?”)
• The children should be allowed to watch suitable TV programs of their choice.
• The children should not be allowed near the prayer chapel, which should only be used by the staff when not on duty.

In the end the authorities in Iaşi backed down and did not enforce these rules, but they never changed their policies. Romania has applied to join the European Union in 2007 and according to EU regulations most orphanages will have to be closed down and the children put up for adoption or put in foster care. Partly because of these regulations and partly because of the limitations on our freedom to educate the children, we have taken the decision to put the rest of the orphanage children into families as well.

In order to make the transition easier for the children, whom we love very much, we are placing as many of them as possible into the families of our staff. There is already a strong bond of affection between them. In this way the children will remain in the care of Christian families. Some of the children whose parents are alive will go back to live with them. We will pay them the monthly child allowance of $290.00 (£193.00) per child. We are convinced that this is best for the children’s long-term welfare.

We shall still be responsible for the financial support and spiritual welfare of the thirty-eight orphanage children. We would encourage those of you who sponsor them to continue your sponsorship. The only change is that the sponsorship money will become part of the child allowance paid to the foster families each month. We have had to subsidize the orphanage sponsorship income as the cost of running the orphanage was much more than that.

The families that take the children will bring them at least twice a week to the orphanage or canteens to participate in the Christian activities. The choir, the dance group and the video-based Bible training course, the International School of Ministry, will all continue as before. This will provide some continuity and the children will keep in touch with their friends. The families that take the children will be able to continue the children’s religious education in their homes free of interference by the state.

We estimate that this whole process will take a few months to complete. The orphanage facilities will continue to be used to help poor children and young people. They could also be used to accommodate children who choose to work with our mission in the future.

These changes at the orphanage will not affect the work of feeding the 800 children at the canteens. We do not face the same restrictions at the canteens, because they are not residential institutions. The laws that apply there are basically only to do with safety and hygiene. With your continued sponsorship they will go on just the same as before.
We hope to finish the new building at Cantina El Roi as soon as possible. It will become a wonderful center for messianic worship and training, as well as a center where hundreds of poor children can be fed. The bakery will continue to provide bread and the farm in Rediu will continue to provide food for the children.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support.